GSA Schedule vs Open Market: Which to Pursue
When a new federal contractor asks where to start, the question is usually framed as a choice: should I get on the GSA Schedule, or should I bid on open-market opportunities on SAM.gov? The honest answer is that most successful contractors eventually do both — but the order matters, and the two routes work very […]
Government Debriefs: How to Request and Use One
Every proposal you submit ends the same way: a win, a loss, or an elimination before the award. Whatever the outcome, the government owes you something most new contractors never claim — an explanation. A government debrief is a formal meeting, usually by phone or video, in which the contracting officer tells you how your […]
RFP Amendments: How to Handle Changes After Release
You have spent two weeks writing your proposal. The technical approach is finished, the price volume is nearly done, and then a new document appears on SAM.gov: Amendment 0003. The deadline has moved, a requirement has changed, and a whole section of the statement of work has been rewritten. This is normal in federal contracting […]
How to Contact a Contracting Officer (the Right Way)
Every federal contract is awarded by a contracting officer — the one government official with the authority to sign a contract and spend public money. For a small business trying to break into federal contracting, the contracting officer is both the most important person to know and the hardest to reach. They are busy, they […]
FPDS Explained: How to Research Who Won Past Contracts
FPDS — the Federal Procurement Data System — is the federal government’s official record of who bought what, from whom, and for how much. Every federal contract action above a reporting threshold is recorded in FPDS, creating a public database of past awards that any contractor can search for free. For a firm preparing to […]
How to Find DoD Contract Opportunities
The Department of Defense is the largest buyer in the federal government, spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on everything from weapons systems and IT services to facilities maintenance, catering, logistics, and professional services. For a small business, that scale is both an opportunity and a challenge: the opportunity is enormous, but the […]
Agency Procurement Forecasts: How to Read Them
An agency procurement forecast is a public list of what a federal agency expects to buy in the coming months, often for the current and next fiscal year. Agencies publish these forecasts so that businesses — especially small businesses — can prepare long before a solicitation appears. For a contractor, a forecast is one of […]
Presolicitation Notices Explained
A presolicitation notice on SAM.gov is the government’s formal heads-up that a solicitation is coming. It appears before the request for proposals, sometimes weeks or months before, and it tells the market what the agency plans to buy, roughly when the solicitation will be issued, and under what conditions. For contractors who know how to […]
Draft RFPs: Why Smart Contractors Comment Early
When an agency publishes a draft request for proposals, it is offering contractors a rare opportunity: the chance to change the solicitation before it becomes final. Most firms ignore draft RFPs. They wait for the real thing, then discover requirements they cannot meet, evaluation factors that favour a competitor, or instructions that make no sense, […]
RFI Responses That Get You Noticed
A request for information, or RFI, is the government’s invitation to teach it something before it buys. Unlike a solicitation, an RFI asks for knowledge, not a price, and unlike a casual inquiry, it is published, structured, and read by the people who will shape the eventual procurement. Firms that respond well to RFIs gain […]